


Beware the Frozen Heart

by RosieIce



Category: Gotham - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Married Couple, revival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 11:41:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17807345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieIce/pseuds/RosieIce
Summary: Victor finds out somebody brought his previously dead wife back to life. Now he wants answers.





	1. The Messenger

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I don’t own any of the Gotham characters 
> 
> 2) this is set in the same somewhat-alternate universe as another one of my stories, We’re All A Little Mad Here. There may be overlap in some parts.

Someone has entered Victor Fries’ safehouse. It didn’t take long for him to sneak up and attack the intruder.

“Please, I’m not here to rob you. I come with a promise and a message.”

“Why should I care? It’s either ‘I’ll reverse your condition’ or ‘I’ll get you the money for your research’. I tire of empty promises. What more could you do?”

“Nora.”

Victor slammed all of his strength onto the stranger until he’s backed up against a wall, his hands tightening around the man’s throat.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

“She’s alive. Nora. Your wife’s still alive.”

“ **LIAR! I saw her die. Crumble into pieces. Nothing can bring her back.** ”

The man could barely breathe, but he managed to weakly shake his head. “No… we fixed that.”

The anger dissipated from Victor’s eyes. As his emotions simmered down into disbelief, he loosened his grip. The intruder slid down the wall, fighting to regain his breath.

“Your wife- ( _cough_ )- Nora Fries, she is alive, but in a medically-induced coma. We want to return her to you.”

After processing what he heard, Victor started to get suspicious. “Why should I bother to believe you? And what would you demand in return? Money, a favor, freezing people you don’t like?”

“Mr. Freeze, we don’t want anything from you. We’ve revived another patient recently and set them free, no strings attached. If you don’t believe us, just ask for our research or even the revived person. We won’t keep something this important from you, especially when it’s someone you care for.”

“You said you did this before on a dead body, …can you do it with someone alive?”

“Yes, it’s possible. Is there someone you had in mind?”

“Me. Turn me back into my old self. You can do that, right? Do that and I will return the favor.” 

“It’s not the same as reviving dead people, but it can be done.”

Mr. Fries paced the room as he considered what he heard. When the stranger was beginning to wonder how much longer he had to wait, Victor spoke up.

“Do it. Bring me to my wife first. I need to see her with my own eyes before I cave in to another false lead to hope.”

Silently, the messenger stood up from the floor and led Mr. Freeze out the door to a possibly brighter future.


	2. A Promise Kept

She was his sleeping beauty. He caressed his wife’s cheek as he gazed upon the intact, pinkish color of her skin that proved Nora Fries was indeed alive. Victor walked around and around the medical bed carefully inspecting her charts and vitals. Once he was satisfied that nothing was amiss, he looked up to the only other person in the room. 

“You actually did it. You brought my wife back.” He turned his gaze back to Nora.

“We did what we could. She can be awakened at any point. We merely wait for your word.” 

“Not yet. I don’t want to scare her with my state,” Mr. Freeze said without breaking his focus on his sleeping wife. He looks over his shoulder to the Indian Hill employee with a concerned expression. “You are 100% certain she can wake up?” 

“Yes. It’s been done before with no problem. Although, we now know that she’ll need someone she knows to explain the situation to her. The last patient… didn’t take well to being surrounded by strangers upon revival.”

“I’ll be there for her. I’ll _always_ be there for her.” He finally looks up with a question on his mind. Looking at the man’s nametag, noting that his name is Bill, he softly said: “Bill, my wife was dying from a terminal disease. Your technology can bring Nora back to life, can it also cure her ailment?”

“We were more focused on reviving her than curing her state, sir. However, it’s not impossible. I’ll look into it right now.” As the employee was about to leave, Victor jumped from his position and placed himself between Bill and the door. With purpose, he stepped closer to the man, stopping when there was only a foot between them, using his height to appear more menacing. “No, I believe the time has come for you to keep your promise. To reverse my condition.”

Bill’s mouth suddenly went dry and he gulped down his fear. He was used to working with crazies and freaks, but that didn’t mean he was fearless around them. Bill did his best to hide his fear of the ice-man in front of him, but he was failing miserably. “Y-yes, sir,” he squeaked in a broken voice. Bill cleared his throat and continued, “Please, follow me.”

* * *

“Are you ready, Mr. Fries?”

“I’ve been ready for a long time. Get on with it.”

The doctors proceeded with their tasks. Someone looped restraints around his arms and legs while another approached him with a syringe filled with an orange goo-like substance. “Apologies in advance; this will hurt a lot. Try to take deep breaths.” 

They carefully injected the material into his vein and he felt like someone inserted fire into his body. He tried, really he did, but the pain was more than he expected. This material was worse than his serum. It started as tolerable heat in his arm, but it quickly escalated in pain as it coursed its way up his arm and to his chest. By the time it reached his other extremities, the heat became white-hot, to the point it became numbingly painful. 

It was starting to be too much. Victor’s screams came out before he could stop himself. Tears from the pain cascaded down his cheeks without his permission. He wanted to tell someone to stop, but his brain couldn’t form the words. All that came out was a whimper. Fries tried to move, but the restraints kept him in place. The fire finally settled throughout his body, but instead of regressing, it worsened to another degree. It felt like a high-grade fever and he didn’t know how much longer he could bear it. Victor promptly blacked out from the pain.

* * *

Warmth. It greeted him as he returned to consciousness. His head throbbed in utter pain. Mr. Freeze tried to sit up, but his entire body felt like it was made of lead. Everything hurt. It reminded him of his college days when he stupidly thought it would be cool to work out with weights that were too heavy for him and paid the consequences the next day when he couldn’t lift himself out of bed.

Blinking his eyes open, he shut them immediately after being blinded by bright lights. Shaking his head, he focused on his other senses. 

At first, he only heard ringing, but it was slowly replaced with the beeps of monitors and the muffled voices of people talking. His throat was in dire need of water; his tongue felt like sandpaper. The scent in the air was similar to a hospital room: sterile with a hint of disinfectants. Victor felt the devices on his hand and chest that monitored his vitals. He also felt very, very warm. 

Groaning, he slowly opened his eyes again. It took a while for his sensitive eyesight to be accustomed to the lights. As soon as the clarity and hearing returned, he looked around the room. He saw monitors next to his bed and at least four doctors in the room checking his vitals and charts. With a gulp, he asked: “What happened?” 

One of the doctors turned their head at his voice. “Oh good, you’re awake. We didn’t know how long you’d be out.”

“I feel warm. I haven’t felt this warm since-.” Something important clicked into place. “What is the temperature right now?”

A knowing smile crossed the doctor’s face as he replied: “a warm 70 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Victor Fries, aka Mr. Freeze, was at room-temperature, without his suit, without overheating.

* * *

“Your vitals look normal. Body temperature: normal. Blood flow: normal. Heart rate: normal. Even your irises have reverted to normal if the original color was brown. However-“

Victor turned his head. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry to say your formula will remain in your bloodstream due to the exposure, there’s no fixing that. And your hair remains shock-white.” A doctor hands him a hand-held mirror. Victor peers at his reflection. What he saw was the man he used to be apart from the hair color. He could live with that. He lowers the mirror and glances up. “The formula isn’t a problem to me and hair can be dyed. What matters is you kept your word; you returned me to normal.”

“As promised,” the employee nodded in agreement.

“Can I ask about the process? The science is beyond my understanding. What was in that orange goo? What properties allowed this to happen?”

The doctor chuckled. “I’ll keep it very simple. The substance was merely the introductory agent. You passed out during the first of many, many steps. The ‘orange goo’, as you call it, tricked your body into accepting the substances that would reverse your condition. After that, you were placed in a specialized tank to stabilize the chemicals in your body, transfused with temperature-sensitive blood, injected with numerous chemicals, and returned to stabilize in another tank. And this didn’t happen in one day. You’ve been out for three days straight.”

There was a long pause as the new information sunk in. “Three days?”

“Yes, sir. May I ask how you are feeling?”

Victor gave it some thought. “Tired. Weak, as if my body was made of lead. And…warm. How long must I rest? I need to see Nora as soon as possible.”

“Recovery from a change as impactful as what you went through takes time. My fellow doctors agree that a week of bed rest is what you need. However, I can give you something to hasten the recovery to a full day instead. After that, we’ll take you to your wife.”

“Do that. Please.” 

With a final nod, the doctor left. Mr. Fries thunked his head on a pillow and let out a long sigh. He didn’t want to believe what happened. These people brought back his wife, restored his condition, and most surprising of all, asked that he bring Nora home in the end. No threats. No special favors. He couldn’t help except wonder when the other shoe will fall.

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me what is good about this story, then I shall add more chapters in the future.


End file.
